Stroboscopes are used in the industry to stop motion and allow inspection of reciprocating or rotating machinery or to determine the rate of reciprocation or speed of rotation. The typical mode of operation is asynchronous whereby the operator manually adjusts the flash rate until the moving target appears to be visually static. Unless the machine is running at a constant rate, the operator is required to continuously adjust the settings of the stroboscope to maintain the stop motion.
An alternate method is to trigger the stroboscope synchronously using an external pulse generated from the reciprocating/rotating machine. This method requires the machine to be pre-fitted with some form of encoder or mechanical device to provide the synchronous pulse.
Another method involves the use of an external reflective optical sensor which emits a light beam at the target, the reciprocating/rotating machine which has a reflective target attached or some other physical feature (such as a keyway on a shaft) which acts as a reflective target. The light is reflected by the target and sensed by the optical sensor which then generates a pulse to trigger the stroboscope flash. Unless the stroboscope has special blanking capability, the stroboscope flash will cause the optical sensor to re-trigger which will cause another flash and so on, leading to unstable operation. If a portable stroboscope uses an external sensor, then the user needs two hands to separately operate the portable stroboscope and the external sensor or the user needs to mount the external sensor on a tripod. The cabling of the sensor to the stroboscope and its accessories may pose a danger around moving machinery.
The objective of the present invention is to address the aforementioned issues. In particular, the present invention introduces a stroboscope with an integrated optical sensor. The optical sensor helps trigger the stroboscope as required. Moreover, the user only needs one hand to operate the stroboscope since the optical sensor is integrated into the stroboscope. A feature of the optical sensor is that it may be removed for remote operation.